[rqebmm]

> These five words are, as far as I can tell, the poison in the pudding of American politics today.

In the abstract, you're right, but I feel like it's worth noting that there's nothing exceptionally ignorant about voters of _today_. If anything they're more knowledgeable than any voters in American history.

[veidr]

> there's nothing exceptionally ignorant about voters of _today_

What makes you think that? It certainly doesn't seem true based on direct observation.

It seems to me that Americans today a lot more certain of various false things than they were during the 1970s, 80s, or 90s.

Not that people haven't always believed lots of incorrect things, but if we could (magically) get the data and find out, I'd be very surprised if it didn't show people believe more incorrect things today than in (say) the 1980s and they are more confident (sure they are right) in their wrong beliefs as well.

Of course, this is one of those very tricky subjects, and I am not aware of any high-quality data on it. So I could be wrong, my experience may not be representative, and maybe people were historically as ignorant as they are today. But I doubt it.

The "filter bubble" and the explosion of authoritative-looking-but-totally-full-of-shit sources are probably major contributors to the phenomenon.

Also, I think that the ratio of basically correct, informative information to garbage info has inverted. For example, IIRC in the 1970s and 1980s, seems to me people had maybe a dozen or two dozen regular news sources. Most news sources -- major newspapers, ABC/CBS/NBC news -- were mostly accurate.

That's certainly not the case today. The overwhelming majority of information most people intake is completely inaccurate or fabricated. It's not really "news", it's advertising, propaganda, for-profit clickbait, whatever. And yet, many people seem to have the same confidence in it and it seems to shape their beliefs in a similar way.

It feels like people know more things than in the old days, but if they know more incorrect things, then I think that's "more ignorant" when you tally it up.

[battlebot]

If you read about "Yellow Journalism" and how newspapers were used to accomplish things rich people wanted to happen, you will realize that Americans, and humans in general, have been subject to mass manipulation via the media for centuries.

[CaptSpify]

Are they more knowledgeable? I know that they have the opportunity to learn more nowadays, but do they actually take advantage of that opportunity?